Technical Field
The invention relates to a method for capturing an item of laundry, wherein a point of the item of laundry is grabbed or drawn by suction by a capturing means and is transported away by the capturing means.
Prior Art
Washed items of laundry usually leave a washing machine intertwined with one another as a pile of laundry. Before the items of laundry which come out of a washing machine in this way are subjected to further treatment steps, for example mangling or sorting, they have to be separated. Particularly because the further treatment steps for the washed items of laundry can vary depending on the type of item of laundry, it is essential for the pile of laundry to first be separated, in order to be able to individually capture and, if necessary, to sort each item of laundry.
In laundries, it may also be necessary for items of laundry which have already been separated to be individually captured or grabbed in order to feed them to a further treatment step. If, for example, the items of laundry are passed to clamps of a transportation conveyor in a next step, it is advantageous when the items of laundry are equally captured such that they can be passed directly to the clamps of the transportation conveyor.
Methods in which individual items of laundry are captured or picked out of a pile of laundry or in which items of laundry which have already been separated have to be captured or grabbed from a pile of laundry are already known. However, it has been found in these known methods that several items of laundry are often picked out at the same time. In addition, in the known methods, it is possible that the item of laundry may not be captured at all on account of a point of the item of laundry which was targeted by the grabbing means being unfavourable. In the cases in which several items of laundry are grabbed or no item of laundry at all is grabbed, the items of laundry incorrectly continue to be treated or movement of the capturing means is carried out without an item of laundry being moved. Reliable and economical separation of the items of laundry cannot be achieved in this way. This results in drops in performance.